


True North

by bearonthecouch



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Alliances, Friendship, Gen, Implied Relationship, Pre-Canon, Stargazing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-05
Updated: 2018-09-05
Packaged: 2019-07-07 11:56:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15907797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bearonthecouch/pseuds/bearonthecouch
Summary: “You trust people a hell of a lot more than I do.”“Notpeoplepeople,” Mustang attempts to clarify, with his half-drunk logic. “Just certain people.”





	True North

“Stars are pretty,” Roy mumbles, as he leans against Maes’ shoulder.

“Are you drunk?” Hughes asks.

Roy yawns and stretches, his arm nearly hitting Maes in the face.

“No. Little bit. Maybe.”

“Maybe,” Hughes repeats dubiously. Roy’s alcohol tolerance is fairly legendary, but then, they’d started early and Mustang had kept going long after he’d stopped. Most people would be way more than “maybe a little bit” drunk, at this point. 

The two of them are on their backs in the grass of the academy’s sprawling lawn, the very-early-morning dew soaking through their shirts as they lie there looking up at the sky.

That sky is clear and dark, and although most of the stars are still overwhelmed by the ambient city light, reducing constellations down to nothing more than scattered pinpricks of white shot through the blackness, Mustang’s right: it _is_ pretty. 

Maes stretches out a finger and traces the path of Orion’s belt, knowing where it should be more than being able to see it. The north star glows independent of its dippers, bright and strong.

“What’re you doing?” Roy mumbles.

Maes lets his arm fall and then pushes himself up onto his elbows, dislodging Roy from his shoulder and making the other boy whine. Hughes rolls his eyes.

No one else is around, not at whatever-the-hell-time-it-is. After the bars close, before reveille, pitch-black morning last-gasp-of-weekend-furlough-o-clock. But still, Hughes is sober enough to realize that he probably shouldn’t let Mustang get all clingy while they’re in the middle of campus where anybody _could_ walk by. 

He glances at Roy, who has curled up into an almost fetal position and looks like he’s about to drift off. “I’m finding constellations, Mustang,” he says.

“Why?”

“So I can save your ass when you get lost in the middle of the fucking wilderness and flunk SERE because you grew up in Central and never saw the sky.”

Roy rolls over onto his stomach, leans forward on his elbows, and looks over at Maes. “I thought you were from Central, too.”

“My grandparents live on a farm. Sky’s wide open out there. Nothing to see but stars.”

“Oh.”

It had been like that where the Hawkeyes lived, too, but Roy spent almost all his time there curled up inside, trying to teach himself enough alchemy to live up to his master’s unyielding expectations. Berthold Hawkeye wasn’t so much a teacher as a demander, always setting tasks that felt damn near impossible until Roy figured out how to do them, usually after a series of strung-together all-nighters and more than one fight with little Riza Hawkeye, who put herself into his line of fire when he was most exasperated but gave worse than she got. It was a weird motivational strategy, especially coming from a ten-year-old, but it worked. He wouldn’t let her see him fail, and when his own natural stubbornness hit its breaking point, hers kicked in and carried him through. They never went stargazing, though.

“Do you really not know _anything_ about the stars?” Maes asks, frowning down at Roy with obvious disbelief. He’d gone out with his grandfather since before his earliest memories, listening to the legends that lulled him to sleep, stories of the great bear and the hunter and the dragon like the one on the Amestrian flag. Eventually, Maes grew to like the stars themselves more than the stories, finding comfort in the mathematics of uncountable things, but still. “Big Dipper?” he asks. “North Star?”

Roy shrugs. “They all look the same to me. Just… lights.”

“Find the really _bright_ one.” Maes reaches over and grabs Roy’s hand, guides it so that it’s hovering under Polaris’ comforting glow. “North Star,” he says. “Follow the Big Dipper, usually. When it’s not drowned out by clouds and streetlights. That’s how you’ll find your way.”

He rolls over to trace the shape with his finger in the grass, naming the stars as he does it. Roy frowns at Hughes’ hand as it draws the invisible lines.

“Come on, Mustang, you should be great at this. I’ve seen those transmutation circles you make, this is the same thing. Just patterns and shapes.”

“Transmutation circles _mean_ something.”

“So do constellations.”

Roy grunts an acknowledgement, but he still sounds doubtful. He sits up in the grass, wrapping his arms around his knees, and tilting his head back to squint up at the sky.

Maes still lays on his stomach, head resting on his arms.

“You really like this stuff?” Roy asks.

“I find it calming. Hopeful. Like no matter what petty shit we get up to down here, the stars aren’t going anywhere.”

“It’s overwhelming, isn’t it? The idea that nothing we do matters?”

“I didn’t say nothing _matters_ , Mustang. I just said nothing we do can fuck up the sky. That still leaves a lot of options.”

“I guess.”

“Don’t you think it’s comforting to know there’s something in the world that’s got your back when you lose your sense of direction?”

Roy’s quiet for a long moment, then he shrugs. “Don’t need stars. I have people.”

“You trust people a hell of a lot more than I do.”  
  
“Not _people_ people,” Mustang attempts to clarify, with his half-drunk logic. “Just certain people.”

Maes snorts and shakes his head. “Fine. I promise not to let you get lost. Satisfied?”

Roy nods. He's still looking up at the sky.


End file.
